“He was going to record it, so they put it on hold so nobody else could. But he didn’t actually record it”: Sheryl Crow says Don Henley told her to stop giving her songs away after she wrote a song for Eric Clapton that never got released

Sheryl Crow has revealed that Don Henley once told her to stop giving her songs away after she wrote a song for Eric Clapton that never got released.

Before Crow was a superstar solo artist she did all kinds of things. She was a session artist and sang backups with Michael Jackson, Neal Schon and Don Henley. And she wrote songs.

She wrote Love You Blind with Jay Oliver, which was later recorded by Celine Dion and released as a non-album B-side to Love You Blind. She wrote All Kinds of People with the late Kevin Gilbert; Tina Turner picked that one up, releasing it on her 1996 studio album, Wildest Dreams.

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And in a recent interview with Esquire, the multi-Grammy winning singer-songwriter reveals that she once wrote a song that was picked up by Eric Clapton.

“I had a song covered by Celine Dion and a song covered by Tina Turner. I had a song that Eric Clapton had on hold,” says Crow. “He was going to record it, so they put it on hold so nobody else can record it.”

Note: Clapton “was going to” record it. This track exists, it is on file out there somewhere, but somehow Slowhand never actually got round to using it. For Crow, it was one thing writing songs for artists, but writing songs only for them to go unreleased? That was a turning point in Crow’s career. An Eagle had some friendly advice that set her straight.

“That was when Don Henley said, ‘You need to quit giving your songs away. And if you’re serious about this, you need to hold on to your songs for yourself,’” says Crow.

Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do - YouTube

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She pressed forward. Famously, her 1992 debut album was torpedoed – and it was Crow that fired the shot. Tracked with producer Hugh Padgham (Sting), with the likes of Vinnie Colaiuta, Dominic Miller and Pino Palladino, it was too polished for Crow’s tastes. It was canned.

Crow had a vision for how her sound was going to be, and 1993’s Tuesday Night Music Club officially introduced her as a solo artist.

All I Wanna Do would become her breakout hit, bringing home the Grammys, plural. We often associate Crow with the acoustic guitar, instruments such as her 2019 customized Gibson Country Western, but oftentimes her songs will start on bass guitar.

She told Bass Player in 2020 that she wrote her first song on bass in 1996, and it was one of her biggest hits, My Favourite Mistake.

Sheryl Crow - My Favorite Mistake - YouTube

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Crow tells Esquire that she had never intended to be the star of the show. For her, the joy in music was just to be writing the songs. Carole King and James Taylor were primary influences.

“I never wanted to be a famous rock star. I wanted to be a great writer,” she says. “My first records were Carole King and James Taylor, and they felt like lifelines for me. Tapestry and Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. When you’re a kid and you can’t figure out where you fit in, music was the thing. That was the escape. That was where I could feel like I wasn’t alone.

“It also gave me a feeling I could get out of my hometown and see things. And so that’s what I wanted. I wasn’t thinking about being Mick Jagger. I just wanted to write songs that made other people feel the way I felt when I listened to those songs.”

Will we ever hear the song she wrote for Clapton? Over to you, Slowhand.